Fences and Freedom
By Genevieve S. Kineke

Sheer unfettered freedom—that would appear to be the goal of many young people, both male and female. They resist all “burdens” that would inhibit their ability to associate with whomever for however long, without pressure from convention, from religious authority, from family responsibilities, even from natural consequences. Pinocchio comes to mind—dodging the daily grind of school, education, accountability, and even being bound to prior promises.

For centuries, the Church has believed that if Catholic women were educated in faith and prudence, the very fact that they had more to lose by promiscuous behavior would ground social structures around the sacraments that heal and protect. Knowing that women were more vulnerable, specifically to the harrowing details associated with unwed motherhood, it was self-evident that reserving sexual intimacy for marriage diminished abandonment and child poverty.

Like a sturdy fence around a playground, rules governing intimacy allowed courtship to proceed in a secure setting. The former guarded against dangerous traffic; the latter against harmful behavior that leads to broken hearts, sexually transmitted diseases, fatherless children, and subtle, less-quantifiable pathologies.

Forty years ago, Pope Paul VI reiterated the need for a “fence” around sexual intimacy. Reminding the faithful of the ends of marriage and the insidiousness of corrupting those ends, he issued Humanae Vitae which eliminated the option of using artificial birth control, even within marriage. To corrupt the sacredness of the nuptial embrace would mean that a man could ignore the woman’s “physical and psychological equilibrium.” Instead, he would reach “the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.”

As counter-intuitive as it appears to modern sensibilities, rejecting contraception (which would appear to increase pregnancy and exacerbate hardships) actually brings about more honesty, integrity and legitimate freedom. To take that option “off the menu”—so to speak—requires that persons proceed with only the true understanding of intimacy. The hard reality is that sexual intimacy has two ends: it bonds persons and creates new life. To embrace chemicals or devices as a means of warding off those two essential facts allows so many to think that they can engage in promiscuous behavior without affecting the heart or conceiving a child. To pursue barrenness of body and soul is to deny our humanity and to court disaster.

Now, of course men don’t get pregnant; and data suggests that they can also engage in promiscuity with less heartache—leaving both consequences for the woman to bear. Leaving the babies aside, the more that young women make themselves sterile and available, the more that men assume their “right” to sex without consequences. Within this death spiral, women give their hearts to be spurned, their bodies to be used, and their souls to be squandered; and in due time this decreases the likelihood that they will ever find men with self-control and hearts ready to sacrifice for women. Such is the price of this particular “freedom.”

Women have the grace and the wisdom to end this indulgent trajectory and to redirect their behavior so as to benefit men, women, and their eventual children. Fleeting romance which requires physical intimacy is the least romantic and the least free—for it shreds hearts and makes them incapable of true love when the time comes. Sacrifice is the foundation of lasting relationships: husband and wife, parent and child, Christ and His Church. The fence restricting play doesn’t change—from the schoolyard to the school of hard knocks, and women should be the first to recognize this. They have the most to lose from misguided freedom.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of The Authentic Catholic Woman (Servant Books).